SEEWQCI and HellasQCI, both coordinated by GRNET, participated in QCI Days 2026, held from 28 to 30 September 2026 at the Centro Congressi Fiera di Padova in Padua, Italy.
Organised by the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and hosted by ThinkQuantum and Officina Stellare, the event brought together the European quantum communication community to discuss the latest developments and deployments, focusing on CEF Digital/EuroQCI projects and IRIS² Quantum Communication Infrastructure initiatives.
On 29 September, Dr. Ilias Papastamatiou, Senior Project Manager and Technical Lead Net/Quantum at GRNET, Coordinator of SEEWQCI & HellasQCI and Greece’s National Representative in the TransEuroOGS project, delivered a presentation entitled “SEEWQCI: From National QCI Deployments to Cross-Border Quantum Communications” during the session “Transitioning from National to Cross-Border Networks”, featuring Digital Europe Programme (DEP) and Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) projects. He highlighted how SEEWQCI builds on national initiatives, including HellasQCI’s Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which spans over 700 km, connects 26 governmental, academic and research nodes, and provides terrestrial connectivity towards Greece’s three Optical Ground Stations. Building on this experience, SEEWQCI advances terrestrial and space-based quantum connectivity across Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Netherlands.
The same session featured presentations of national QCI initiatives under the Digital Europe Programme (DEP), including HellasQCI, presented by Prof. George Kanellos, Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and HellasQCI Project Technical Coordinator, and CYQCI, presented by Prof. Kyriacos Kalli, Professor at Cyprus University of Technology and CYQCI Coordinator. Their contributions highlighted the role of national deployments in supporting cross-border initiatives such as SEEWQCI, funded under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
On 30 September, during the event’s third day, themed “Practical Experience and Next Steps”, Dr. Papastamatiou participated in the panel discussion “EuroQCI non-classified: Acceptance, Experiences, and Future Directions”, alongside Dr. Catarina Cabral Bastos, Ingrid Linnas and Piotr Rydlichowski. The panel explored QKD use cases, experiences from ongoing deployments and the transition towards operational quantum-secured services, with a focus on user requirements and acceptance, interoperability, reliability, certification and trust. The discussion also emphasised the importance of involving end users in developing solutions that can be effectively integrated into existing communication environments.
QCI Days 2026 provided an opportunity to share experiences from national QKD deployments, address operational challenges and user requirements, and strengthen European collaboration towards interoperable cross-border infrastructures and reliable quantum-secured services.
More information about QCI Days 2026 is available here.
